Ableton/Live/UG/29 Audio Effect Reference/33 Roar/02 Gain Stage Section
- Each routing has its own gain stages, each switched on with its Stage toggle. Every stage tab has Shaper Amount, Shaper Bias and Filter Frequency, plus shaper and filter type menus.
- Shaper Amount — saturation; also drag the curve in the display. Distortion happens where the signal reaches the curve's bends.
- Shaper Bias — offsets the signal for asymmetric distortion; high values sound like a broken circuit, extreme values silence it
- Shaper Type — twelve curves:
- Soft Sine — smooth, warm, analog-like even when pushed
- Digital Clip — hard clipping with harsh upper harmonics
- Bit Crusher — amplitude quantization like Ableton/Live/UG/29 Audio Effect Reference/30 Redux; more Amount means fewer bits and a stronger compander. Good with bias modulation; very audible on quiet signals.
- Diode Clipper — virtual analog clipping circuit; like Soft Sine with softer highs
- Tube Preamp — soft tube saturation that keeps transients and dynamics
- Half Wave Rectifier — fully asymmetric; adds crunch to drums
- Full Wave Rectifier — raises the signal an octave; adds harmonics to synths
- Polynomial — shifts from a sine curve to more complex shapes; good for modulation and metallic sounds
- Fractal — lots of high harmonics
- Tri Fold — triangle wavefolder; like Fractal but harsher
- Noise Injection — stereo noise then smooth distortion; saturation with grit
- Shards — constantly changing stereo curve segments that break the signal apart rhythmically
- The toggle under the display turns the shaper off; Shaper Level makes up level changes from the curve.
- Filter Frequency — cutoff. With Pre on, the filter comes before the shaper and leaves the shaper's harmonics alone.
- Filter types: LP, BP, HP, Notch, Peak (with Filter Peak Gain), Morph (low-pass through band-pass to high-pass, with a Morph control), Comb (notches; flanger-like when swept), Resampling (sample-rate artifacts like Redux), Dispersion (delays frequencies by different amounts without changing level, for metallic, spring-like tones). All but Resampling have Resonance.